“When I was 5 years old, my mom always told me that happiness was the key to life. When I went to school, they asked me what I wanted to be when I grew up. I wrote down “happy.” They told me I didn’t understand the assignment, I told them they didn’t understand life.”

Though these guys were shy at first, after I brought out my camera and showed them a picture of themselves, they quickly began posing and playing with me.

They are both Nepali children (cousins) who were playing in the fields as their parents worked. I visited them on multiple occasions, and by the second visit they were no longer shy. I especially fell in love with the little girl. Her family obviously doesn’t have much, she was wearing tattered clothes and her hair was unwashed, but she was extremely happy and playful not to mention a truly beautiful girl. She would climb onto my lap whenever I sat down, and though we didn’t speak the same language, with children that never seems to matter.